President Obama called on foreign leaders Friday to work together better to fight epidemics such as Ebola, saying the world can’t get “caught flat-footed again.”
“We’ve got to make sure we never see a tragedy on this scale again,” Mr. Obama told representatives of more than 40 nations at the White House. “We have to do better, especially when we know that outbreaks are going to keep happening.”
An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa has killed nearly 3,000 people this year and is still raging out of control. The U.S. is sending medical equipment and up to 3,000 military personnel to help build treatment centers and transport health care workers.
Mr. Obama hosted the meeting Friday of the Global Health Security Agenda to prepare for the next such epidemic. The president said one of the needs is for better protective gear for front-line health care workers, and he pledged that the U.S. will pay to manufacture such outfits.
“If you design them, we will make them,” Mr. Obama told the audience. “We will pay for it.”
The president said the international community needs to approach such epidemics as national security emergencies.
“Oceans don’t protect you, walls don’t protect you,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to change our mindset and start thinking about biological threats as the national-security threats that they are.”
South Korea will host the next meeting of the group in 2015.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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